Challenging Facilitation

Building on a record of experience

For many years Pete Ashby has facilitated all sorts of high-level events for Boards and top teams to support them in developing their strategies for the future. Since the late 1980s he has facilitated nearly two hundred overnight events in Windsor Castle alone, sometimes for single organisations and often for Government Departments and partnerships to tackle a really difficult challenge together.

Starting with one-to-one conversations

Nowadays Pete tends to be called in by Chairs and Chief Executives to lead them through a process in which they assess their own performance as a Board. Pete holds one-to-one conversations with all members of the Board before the session to sharpen up those issues that they regard as getting in the way of higher performance. Where these involve leadership behaviours, as they often do, Pete explores with Directors how these might best be raised.

Creating an atmosphere in which anything can be said

Sessions with Boards evaluating their own performance often involve discussions about the leadership offered by the Chair and CEO. Where they are conducted with a high degree of candour, and well managed all round, they can be tremendously positive for the Board’s overall sense of working as a single team.

Pete usually finds that this sort of discussion is best as part of an overnight event running from early afternoon on day one through to an early working lunch on day two. This includes a private working dinner, which is when any assessment of the Chair’s and Chief Executive’s performance tends to take place.

It’s essential that there is an informal atmosphere for a discussion in which Board members feel that anything can be said, so that any concerns can be properly acknowledged (which often deals with 70% of the problem at a stroke) and dealt with – if not immediately, then through an agreed process within a tight timescale.

Performance comes 1st, 2nd and 3rd!

Pete’s experience has been that almost anything to do with behaviours can be discussed among a Board so long as three conditions are met:

1. The spirit of the meeting is one in which tough things ARE said, but in a way that’s generous and assumes the best of everyone in on the discussion
   
2. The assessment is all about how Directors can support each other more in becoming more effective as a leadership team and driving up overall performance, so that any tensions between Non-Executive Directors and Exec Directors are discussed openly on the basis that there should be no “us and them”
   
3. The scope of the discussion isn’t just about behaviours at meetings but also in-between meetings, where NEDs can often be more useful and influential with the Execs if this sort of process recognises the enormous potential of their informal support as well as their formal role at the Board.
   

Walking the Talk

Even when a Board self-assessment produces some challenging insights and moves the whole Board forward, there are still limitations to how long any Board is willing to spend on what can easily become “navel-gazing”. This is why Pete likes to make a point of suggesting that in the morning of day two the Board stop looking back at how they have worked together until now and start practising how they want to work together in future.

They usually take a really tricky strategic issue that the Board know they haven’t engaged with enough in recent months and ask the CEO to open up a discussion in the “new mode” of treating the Board more like an informal support group to work through really difficult challenges with the Execs, without anyone feeling that they have to end up taking a decision.

At the beginning Pete asks the Directors to capture how they would like behaviours to change and then at the end of the discussion they spend a few minutes asking whether they have “walked the talk”. It’s a very effective way of sharpening up some of those changes in behaviour that will take a little time to live to the full.

It’s also usually a really good way of making tangible progress on a live issue that’s of great concern to the Board and ensuring that the event is helping to move the business forward as well as leaving behind some unhelpful habits.

Sharing the risk

The approach that Pete uses for working with Boards does take a few people to the edge of their “comfort zone”! His defence for it is that he has found it better than any other in creating the high levels of honesty and openness that are essential to moving forward in situations where groups can find themselves stuck on a plateau of being above-average without moving much closer to their goal of becoming truly outstanding.

This can seem rather risky, especially at the beginning, and because of this Pete believes that it’s important for Boards to see him as sharing the risk as well. Two-way trust and all that...

This is why a few minutes before the end he asks whether the Board feel that as a result of this self-assessment they should be able to improve their performance in future. Pete needs most of the Board to say yes to meet the terms of the 2WayTrust money back guarantee and be able to submit his invoice afterwards.

Sample groundrules

Below we give examples of the sorts of groundrules that Pete uses for discussions with Boards and Executive teams:

1. We ASSUME THE BEST of each other
   
2. We treat everything that is said as NON-ATTRIBUTABLE
   
3. We respond to the person who has JUST SPOKEN
   
4. We are open to CHANGING OUR MINDS
   
5. We SPEAK ON OUR OWN BEHALF and not as “group reps”
   
6. We are ready to TAKE RISKS with ideas
   
7. We WELCOME CHALLENGE from others
   
8. We are GENEROUS in the ways we challenge others
   
9. We value CLARITY above consensus
   
10. We AVOID surreptitious texting!
    
    

Different groundrules for conflict resolution work

For conflict resolution work with teams, the groundrules do need to be rather different and very carefully customised to the group’s needs.

For example, one of the groundrules that Pete nearly always uses is that of “no justification”. Where a conflict has gone on for years rather than months, this is especially important for helping those involved avoid remaining in the “groove” they have created for themselves.

Every time someone slips back into explaining why they did what they did, Pete will remind them that we agreed not to get into self-justification and it’s now time for moving forward without needing to justify what has gone on before.

Please click the box below to see some of the main events that Pete has led over the past year or so:

If you would like to talk to Pete about facilitating a session with your Board, please e-mail him at pete.ashby@2waytrust.com or call
01364 631310.

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